I read C&D slavishly back in my junior high & high school days, then figured out that the writing and the content they provided was pretty pedestrian compared to other car mags. Things haven't changed much in 20-some years, nor with new leadership (and I use that term loosely.)
And another of Hachette Filipachi 's titles turns to utter crap on its way to extinction; you should so what they did to the European magazine landscape
I feel dirty just saying it, but Diddles could have done a better job than that.
GOD. Agreeing with Wojzilla, complimenting Wert and almost complimenting Diddles, all in one week. You'd think I'd spent the week watching Hugh Grant movies, rather than the Dark Angel box set.
All these years owning a Santa Fe, and I never thought to call it the "Santa Fee" when picking it up from the repair shop. I'm so disappointed in myself.
Hachette has really let its standards down since Saddam's involvement ended.
Seriously, C/D has long been my favorite car magazine, but recently it has been getting pretty difficult to maintain my enthusiasm. The most recent issue I received appears to be printed on newsprint, or perhaps tissue paper, and the lithography is so bad that I thought they were doing an old-timey effect on some of the photos of the S8.
Moreover, the article on the M3/911 contained two glaring typos (again rather than against, viscous rather than vicious, unless there is a viscous circle I am not aware of). Come on, guys, this is 3rd grade stuff.
The most galling thing, for me, is that my subscription renewal worked out to about 2 c. an issue. Seriously, C/D--if you are having trouble making ends meet, stop giving away the frigging magazine. I'd gladly pay a couple of bucks an issue if the ink didn't smear on my hands. Compared to Automobile (which has its own content issues), the quality difference is startling.
I'd like to abandon C/D altogether in favor of Jalop, but I can't take Jalop into the can without worrying about dropping my iPhone into the toilet, and as intoxicating as Siler's prose is, you guys still don't do instrumented testing, and I loves me some bench racing. Maybe I'll just replace it with Car.
@FormerlyPreferredCustomer: And we're not planning on changing either of those things any time soon, which is why there needs to be outlets that provide both the services of being written on paper and doing instrumented testing. But I struggle some days to find more reasons other than those two.
What is up with the American rags? I just noticed that there is not a single American car magazine I can stomach, my monthly literacy drain has turned into [i]Octane, CAR,[/i] and [i]Classic Car[/i].
@BRAWNDO_POWERED: Probably some of the best American ones are the trio of Hemmings glossy mags: Sports and Exotic, Classic Car, and Muscle Machines. But they don't cover new stuff. They are the closest thing to Jalopnik in print.
I actually subscribe to Popular Photography only because I have a slight interest in photography and I can subscribe for 2 years for the cost of buying about 3 issues. I've never even bothered to read most of the editorials. The only good writer they had (Herb Keppler) died a while back and they barely even mentioned it in the magazine. I had to go back and check a back issue when I didn't see his column for a couple of months. The worst part of Popular Photography, and probably why it is so cheap is that it is about 75% ads. I just hope C&D doesn't turn into some super cheap subscription with even less content.
This column looks like he just read a few back issues and talked to whoever happend to be hanging around the office.
Maybe C&D will at least get prettier pictures now.
@pauljones: I know! Besides, car magazine writing in general blows anyway. Made up subjective feelings about a car's "feel" and "essence" are just so much male soap-opera hype. "The 2009 Camry: We give it 9/10 stars for perfect build quality, affordability, and reliability, but the je ne sais quoi of its essence conflicts with its sticky cornering and joie de vivre". What tripe. Show me some pictures already, and I can imagine my own trite mumbling.
@Landau_Calrissian: We give it 7/10 stars for decent build quality, reasonable affordability, excellent reliability, and livable performance, but its pillow-soft ride and Novocaine-like, though secure, steering lead to boredom on all off-interstate trips. The exterior, in classic Subaru fashion, is bland but ugly - you either dislike it or you're legally blind. Low points here include the giant "wart" over the grille (a trait shared with the Corolla and new Prius) and slightly awkward rear styling; however, in profile, the car isn't unattractive. The base model's hubcaps are unlikely to be correctly centered, so choose the optional alloy wheels for the sake of your fellow drivers' sanity.
Alright, Ray. It's clearly not well written, but it is, at least, coherent. At no point did I wonder what the hell he was talking about. As a first draft, I'd probably let it go (unless I was tasked with editing it).
It reads a bit more like a stream-of-consciousness outline than a true first draft, and when taken as such, it is far more acceptable.
@smalleyxb122: Are you serious? Never mind the well-written part. It's almost as if he said "OK, which advertisers aren't getting enough column space in the magazine? OK, let's talk them up." It's terrifyingly bad.
@smalleyxb122: I have to agree with Wert here. FUCK. It's happened again. I need a shower.
This just reeks of a paper written by someone who knows nothing about cars, so he picked a blatantly obvious topic -- particularly for a changeover at C&D, a car mag roundly criticised for its tendency to heap love and affection on BMW and Honda/Acura -- and interviewed his staff. The writing is weak, to be sure, and he broke multiple grammatical rules (which I routinely ignore in my comments, but then, I'm not getting paid, except in my COTD bottles of scotch), but more than that, he only said things that any enthusiast, reading his magazine, is already abundantly aware of. What? The G8 is good? Say it ain't so!
This would be fine for the AUTOS section of a local newspaper; not for C&D.
Pretty cliche. I didn't know he was a non-car guy, but is he a non-writer too? I wonder if Stephan Wilkinson was ridiculed this badly as well, but at least he ended up writing a great book about it. (I suggest you guys all pick it up too, at the very least reading about another man's Project Car Hell should discourage you from your own like it failed to do with me.)
Oh, and speaking of which. Jalopnik, you still looking for interns? I put on my big-boy shoes this morning and even fixed up my hair, pretty please?
01/08/09
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01/08/09
This is so awful I can't even believe it.
Seriously?? I honestly could write better Editor's Columns than this fool.
What idiot car magazine makes a non-carguy an EDITOR?
WHO DOES THAT?!
I mean, that's like hiring the CEO of Home Depot to run Chrysler! Look how well that turned out.
This is why I don't have a subscription to C&D.
01/08/09
01/08/09
01/08/09
GOD. Agreeing with Wojzilla, complimenting Wert and almost complimenting Diddles, all in one week. You'd think I'd spent the week watching Hugh Grant movies, rather than the Dark Angel box set.
01/08/09
Dark Angel?
Here, allow me to let you in on a little secret Guinness beer and The L-Word with no sound.
01/08/09
01/08/09
Oh hell with it, I'll give you a link, I know you're busy.
[jalopnik.com]
01/08/09
01/08/09
Usually you pay double for that kind of action, Cotton
01/08/09
Seriously, C/D has long been my favorite car magazine, but recently it has been getting pretty difficult to maintain my enthusiasm. The most recent issue I received appears to be printed on newsprint, or perhaps tissue paper, and the lithography is so bad that I thought they were doing an old-timey effect on some of the photos of the S8.
Moreover, the article on the M3/911 contained two glaring typos (again rather than against, viscous rather than vicious, unless there is a viscous circle I am not aware of). Come on, guys, this is 3rd grade stuff.
The most galling thing, for me, is that my subscription renewal worked out to about 2 c. an issue. Seriously, C/D--if you are having trouble making ends meet, stop giving away the frigging magazine. I'd gladly pay a couple of bucks an issue if the ink didn't smear on my hands. Compared to Automobile (which has its own content issues), the quality difference is startling.
I'd like to abandon C/D altogether in favor of Jalop, but I can't take Jalop into the can without worrying about dropping my iPhone into the toilet, and as intoxicating as Siler's prose is, you guys still don't do instrumented testing, and I loves me some bench racing. Maybe I'll just replace it with Car.
01/08/09
01/08/09
I pay $10 a month for CAR, and it's worth it.
What is up with the American rags? I just noticed that there is not a single American car magazine I can stomach, my monthly literacy drain has turned into [i]Octane, CAR,[/i] and [i]Classic Car[/i].
01/08/09
01/08/09
This column looks like he just read a few back issues and talked to whoever happend to be hanging around the office.
Maybe C&D will at least get prettier pictures now.
01/08/09
And 0-60 now, but that's cuz Ensign Wesley and The Postfather both write for them.
01/08/09
With car magazines, I NEVER read them for the articles anyway. Just like another type of magazine.
01/08/09
You know, the great thing about books and magazines is that there are lots of cool pictures.
01/08/09
"The 2009 Camry: We give it 9/10 stars for perfect build quality, affordability, and reliability, but the je ne sais quoi of its essence conflicts with its sticky cornering and joie de vivre". What tripe.
Show me some pictures already, and I can imagine my own trite mumbling.
01/08/09
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01/08/09
It reads a bit more like a stream-of-consciousness outline than a true first draft, and when taken as such, it is far more acceptable.
01/08/09
01/08/09
01/08/09
This just reeks of a paper written by someone who knows nothing about cars, so he picked a blatantly obvious topic -- particularly for a changeover at C&D, a car mag roundly criticised for its tendency to heap love and affection on BMW and Honda/Acura -- and interviewed his staff. The writing is weak, to be sure, and he broke multiple grammatical rules (which I routinely ignore in my comments, but then, I'm not getting paid, except in my COTD bottles of scotch), but more than that, he only said things that any enthusiast, reading his magazine, is already abundantly aware of. What? The G8 is good? Say it ain't so!
This would be fine for the AUTOS section of a local newspaper; not for C&D.
01/08/09
Oh, and speaking of which. Jalopnik, you still looking for interns? I put on my big-boy shoes this morning and even fixed up my hair, pretty please?
01/08/09